Even in the halls of American politics, the debate rages on about the TikTok sell-off bill, and it's too much of a question that lingers: what exactly is the danger posed by TikTok, and must be banned as one analyses the evidence to date?.

Since neither the public has been shown much nor really, the sell-off push seems to be only based on vague concerns about TikTok potentially gathering U.S. user data and the Chinese government potentially holding sway over the content shown in user feeds, TikTok has outright rejected all such reports, and we have seen no direct evidence of either. But still, U.S. senators voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, supposedly based on top-secret briefings from intelligence experts, which seemingly portrayed the app as a riskier proposition than the public understands.

So what did these decision-makers get shown that spooked them so much about the app?

Well, this week, continuing the discovery process from TikTok's legal case against the bill, we've been given a little more perspective to the perceived threat of the app, using the transcript of the original briefing presented to senators by security experts about TikTok.

Even with that, though, amidst all the redacted notes, it's not clear how much is the threat.
All details are blacked out and hidden from the public, although in the above opening statement we can see the main focus areas of the investigation:

Relationships between TikTok and the Chinese government
Practices of data collection by TikTok
Influence operations executed by China inside the app.
The bottom line from intelligence officers is that TikTok does represent a 'latent threat to U.S. national security, because Beijing has legal and economic leverage over these companies, and therefore, significant potential leverage over their operations.'".

That is the basis of the sell-off push, on which the U.S. government will rely to get it to pass in the first place-as long as TikTok plans to challenge the bill legally, at least. Consensus opinion from the legal community says national security concerns tend to override other ones, and will be enough to keep the bill from being derailed by this challenge.

But again, the details on just how this will work remain unclear, as security officials want as much of the briefing as possible off the record.
That's partly why public support for the bill is waning, because we don't understand the full scope of the concern, and TikTok's looking to use this to strengthen its opposition to what is effectively calling a ban.
We do know, however, from Justice Department reports that TikTok tracked some of the U.S. users' view on sensitive subjects, and that information is shared with its Chinese parent company ByteDance, which is mandated to pass on such info to the Chinese government when requested. In addition to that, various reports have revealed that some issues and aspects in TikTok were being censored. There's, thus, some public record of how bleak an enterprise it's been-so far-but it would be useful to know the full measure of the case against the app as the government readsies its push.

Briefing notes also pointed out that according to the same kinds of similar concerns, any app could effectively be policed in this same manner - an objection which the security officials dismiss based on the required convergence of several factors such as a large number of users and owned by a foreign adversary. The briefing also mentions other apps that might pose similar risks, but the view here is that no other foreign-owned social app has that kind of influence that TikTok has at present.

Thus, again, the information is sparse, but the transcript answers some of the major questions about the TikTok sell-off bill and why the app has found its way under the hammer of officials.

Still, will TikTok be pushed out of the U.S.? Chinese officials repeatedly said they'd rather have it banned than sold to U.S. owners, and the government feels confident that it will prevail in its legal challenge. So yes, that does seem likely, though one presidential candidate is assuring voters that he'll save the app, if elected.

Much is left to be seen, and it can really go either way.